[FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

[Eric Charles]

Speaking as a federal employee.... I encounter appeals to authority almost
constantly in situations where the thing appealed to lacks the authority
claimed. It is amazing to watch the reactions when someone says "We are
going to do X because so-and-so says we are going to do X," and the whole
room nods except for me. Then I calmly reply that so-and-so lacks the
authority to make that decision. It gets especially awkward when I show
Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) to support my assertion that we are going
to do things differently. CFR has *actual *authority. I'm also the kind of
asshole that makes a senior executive put in writing when they are granting
an exception, when the CFR allows exceptions to be granted by senior
executives, and won't accept a subordinate making the same move because,
again, they explicitly lack that authority..... point being... lots of
people make appeals to authority in situations where the thing they are
appealing to lacks the authority they want.... but that still counts an
"appeal to authority."

As an academic, my fascination with authority mostly revolved around
graduation ceremonies. At Penn State Altoona, we always had an emissary
from the board of trustees, who would travel to our campus with an
oversized magical amulet that he gives to the Chancellor, thereby vesting
in her the power of the board to grant degrees. I'm not joking, the magical
ceremony can be seen in this video starting at 51:45.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dYPPptGYC8

Groups of students are asked to stand, then the Chancellor states: "Through
the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees of The Pennsylvania State
University I now bestow upon each of you your respective degree."

This is necessary, presumably, because only the board of trustees has the
power to grant degrees... and should a drunk hobo accidentally wander into
a board of trustees meeting, they are fully within their authority to grant
him a Ph.D. in Drunkology from Penn State. Should they agree to do so, it
is done, regardless of any objections that might be lodged later.

I often thought about asking someone to attend the Altoona graduation
ceremony, stand up every time that was about to happen, and then file a
suit arguing that they had been officially granted a degree via the power
of the Board of Trustees. (See also, the excellent book "How to do things
with words".) It would have been so easy to rephrase the stock-statement to
avoid such an issue... but they have still not changed it.

<echarles at american.edu>


On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 10:13 AM Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> wrote:

> I actually find most of those explanations weak, given that, according to
> Feynmann, no one understands quantum mechanics.  How does an appeal to
> authority work when you appeal to an authority that does not understand and
> cannot explain?  How does one don the attributes of experts who do not
> understand or explain their expertise?   Where are the solid foundations of
> quantum mechanics?
>
> I suppose it could all be *pro forma* in that none of the participants
> understand that there is no there there to which one could appeal, so the
> appeal becomes nothing but a ritual motion with "quantum woo" taking the
> place of whichever holiest holy worked last week.
>
> But maybe it's exactly the inexplicability which is the secret sauce, that
> there is something ineffable about the quantum physics.
>
> -- rec --
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:51 AM ∄ uǝlƃ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> OK. So, maybe y'all have collectively provided an answer. The reason(s)
>> people invoke quantum woo so *often* is because it serves several (perhaps
>> conflatable and ambiguous) purposes.
>>
>> In order of appearance in the thread:
>> 1) justificationist appeals to authority
>> 2) donning attributes others (seem to) have but you don't
>> 3) hearkening to paradigm shifts and longing for solid foundations
>> 4) power (both social and individual)
>> 5) evocation of the shaman/oracle archetype
>>
>> Note, I'm not including ordinary physics, only woo, because that's what
>> irritated me enough to stop reading "Ignorance" for so long. Firestein has
>> lots of other riffs and hooks and it was childish of me to react that way
>> ... but I can't help it. The woo is killing me. By contrast, imagining (and
>> ruling out) an "airfoil" around pond scum in relation to the Purcell paper
>> was NOT irritating at all. Invocations of actual physics are fine.
>> Invocations of mysterious stuff just because it's mysterious flips my
>> triggers.
>>
>> Speaking of the Purcell paper, this popped off the queue this morning:
>>
>> New Clues To ALS And Alzheimer's From Physics
>>
>> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/08/888687912/new-clues-to-als-and-alzheimers-from-physics
>>
>> I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it sooner.
>>
>> --
>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>
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